Coming out of the closet.

It's gay pride month so I thought it's the perfect time to let these emotions out.

Ever since I was a little girl people mistook me as my parents' second son. Trust me growing up I really wished I was a boy and I used to get pissed when they mistook me for one. But as I grew up I started enjoying watching people freak out so now I just go with the flow. Here are a few funny incidents from my days of being mistaken for something I'm not (these things are still happening to me lol).

In Hindu Temples men are supposed to take off their shirts once they are inside the 'nalambalam'.

I cut my long hair when I was 17 and being the short skinny person I am, I totally looked like a 13 year old boy (some say I still do lol).

My brother and I visited the 'Kottarakkara Ganapathy Temple' (the one famous for its 'unniyappam'). Usually there are two queues. One for ladies and one for men. But it was early in the morning and there was less rush, so there was only one queue. I was standing between two men (a tall man in front of me and my elder brother behind me). Before stepping inside the 'nalambalam' both my brother and the guy in front of me took off their shirt. And the priest who stood beside the huge door said "Take off your shirt or you can't go inside" and I said "I'm a girl". There were at least 30 strangers around us. The priest's face was priceless after I said that ( Lol You can imagine what happened ; p) .

I recently moved to Kochi for higher studies and it was my first time in a city without my parents being around me all the time. So I took advantage of every opportunity to go out for a movie or roam around the place for no reason.

One day a few friends and I went for a movie in PVR cinemas. (You already know where this is going, I know ; p ). So before getting inside the theatre there's body checking. And men and women are checked separately.

The guys went to the guys section and me and the other girls went to the ladies section and I heard the guy in the counter yell at me "Da Da engot pova. Ivde. Ivide! ". My friends cracked into laughter as I said "Yeahh. I'm a girl. I'm going this way, thanks''.

I joined the repeaters programme after 12th and our hostel was assigned according to the course we chose. While I was getting my stuff ready to get in my room my hostel warden came to me and said "Guys are not allowed inside the hostel" . And I said "Yeah I know but I'm gonna live here for a year".

There are a lot of other incidents from people mistaking me for a guy and don't even get me started with the look on women's faces when I get inside a public washroom lol.

I'd like to change the topic by saying this for the last time "I may look like a guy, but no I don't want to be one".

Now I wanna talk about incidents where people mistook me for a lesbian =^D. Growing up I had a lot of nicknames. But the one that always stuck with me ever since I was a teenager was ‘Kundathi’. ( It’s supposed to be a joke, so don’t get offended. ) It’s the Malayalam word for ‘lesbian’. Don’t worry I’m the last person who’ll get offended from sarcasm, so if you wanna think I’m gay you’re welcome.

But it wasn’t always a joke. The first time I got offended by someone for this reason was an incident where one of my favourite teachers (let's call him prof.X for now) thought I was gay. He was really upset because I had recently cut off my long hair and I believe that's what made him feel like that.

This is what happened:

It was a usual day in school and I had just got into my classroom. ( Now, you should know that I've always been tomboyish, and was friends with guys more than girls before I started living in hostels. So I had two female best friends in school. I'm gonna call them A and B for now lol, and I spent most of my time with A and B or the guys, be it from my class, seniors or juniors.)

As I got settled for the day, A came to me and said " I wanna tell you something that happened in Prof.X's tuition class today". Honestly I thought this was some sarcastic joke again.

"What happened?" I asked out of curiosity.

" He said I should stay away from girls like you for they are the ones who pretend to be friends with us at first and end up forcing us to marry them. And was harrassing your personality in front of the whole tuition class.”

I have never been more offended in my entire life. I wasn’t mad because he thought I was a lesbian. I was actually mad because he was homophobic and just asked my best friend to stay away from me because he thought I was gay. Later that day B told me the same thing without knowing that A had already said that. I got pissed as fuck. That day when he came to take classes I acted like a total jerk to him on purpose and got kicked out of class. To be honest I didn’t feel bad at all. But I realised I shouldn’t justify my misbehavior with his homophobic nature. So I apologized to him anyway.

I DO NOT understand what he was thinking, calling out my friends and asking them to be cautious about me, like I was some sort of terrorist!! And why?! Because he thought I was gay! Even if I was, is this the kind of message a teacher should pass on to his students?!

You see people like that still exist in our society. I actually feel sorry for you if you can’t see how genuinely happy people are when they’re with the person they love. But a teacher being homophobic turns a whole generation homophobic. Don’t get me wrong, he is very good at teaching his subject. But seriously, it’s time people put 'How to be human' as a subject in our educational system instead of teaching us that ' Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell '.

People are still having trouble coming out of the closet because they fear judgement and bullying for who they are. It's already time this nonsense ended. I come from a traditional Hindu family and most of my relatives ( and I mean people from our age too) think that being gay is a disease and that “such people” are not normal. Trust me I’ve tried my best trying to make them realise that they’re as same as straight people are. But they are stubborn in their own ways and won’t change their ideology. Think about what will happen when they raise their kids.

There’s a lot going on in this world right now and the only thing that would keep us together and strong is love.

If you've read this far I'd like to thank you and say one last thing (lol I'm genuinely laughing this time). If you've ever mistaken me for a guy you're wrong. But if you've mistaken me for a lesbian you're not so wrong.

It’s only recently a lot of people asked (and I mean not sarcastically) if I was straight because of a short story that I wrote. And I realised, I’m 20 and it is time that I did this.

I am bisexual. I’ve had 5 crushes till now (and zero relationships lol). 3 of them were guys and the other two were girls. And no, I’ve never confessed it to the girls because I was scared.

To every person who is reading this I wanna say, I’m the same person you used to know before you read this blog. And I hope you see me the same way you did before these past few minutes. I’m terrified and nervous with every word I write and honestly wish with my whole heart that I don’t lose my friends or family because of who I am.